Public Policy

Emefa Timpo - Public Policy (MPP)
Emefa is a first-year student in the Bloustein School's Masters of Public Policy program. She is from West Windsor, NJ, and graduated from Cornell University with a double major in Political Science and Film Studies in 2002. After graduation, she worked at the law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore in New York City before beginning a position as a contracts administrator with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in Geneva, Switzerland. Emefa's interests include environmental policy, political theory, and the political history of the 1960s.  She has had the opportunity to work as an intern for the United Nations Development Program in Windhoek, Namibia. She enjoys volunteering with political campaigns.

David Greenblatt - Public Policy (MPP)
David is a second year student in the Master of Public Policy program at the Bloustein School.  He currently serves as the Vice President of Policy for the Rutgers Association of Policy and Planning Students (RAPPS), the Bloustein student group.  David continues to work towards his academic and professional interest in the public policy process, with special interests in policy analysis and program evaluation.  While pursuing his master’s degree, he has worked with the Bloustein Center for Survey Research and the Center for Urban Policy Research, as well as his most recent summer internship with the Office of Legislative Services at the New Jersey Legislature.  This current academic year, David will also be completing the Governor’s Executive Fellowship with the Eagleton Institute of Politics.  He received a B.A. in Political Science from The College of New Jersey.

Urban Planning

Mark Bolen - Urban Planning
Mark is a second-year urban planning Master's student. His research and academic interests are in sustainable land use, energy policy, and environmental/green building economic analysis. He works as a Graduate Assistant at the Rutgers Center for Green Building as well as an analyst for a land use economics consulting firm. Mark is involved actively in the Rutgers Association of Planning and Policy Students, where as Vice President he helps organize student-led events and community outreach projects. A native of Red Bank, NJ, he completed his bachelor's degree in 2006 with a dual major in economics and sociology from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL.

McCaela Daffern - Urban Planning

McCaela Daffern is a second year Master's student in the Bloustein School's City and Regional Planning program. Before returning to school, McCaela worked for four years in the Pacific Northwest in both the public and private sector as a development and environmental planner. She received a B.A. in environmental policy and planning from
Western Washington University. While exploring a host if topics at Bloustein, she has focused on issues surrounding housing and economic development including mechanisms for strengthening deteriorated neighborhoods, community development finance, and cooperative forms of land ownership. In addition to serving as the President for the Rutgers Association of Planning and Public Policy Students (RAPPS) and working at the Center for Urban Policy Research, she spent her summer working for the Department of Economic and Housing Development at the City of Newark.

Doctoral

Alan Cander is a Ph.D. student in urban planning and policy development. His academic and research interests include growth management, smart growth, and land use with a special interest in intergovernmental efforts to manage growth, share public services, and mitigate the impacts of sprawl. Before coming to the Bloustein School, Alan worked with local governments in the Midwest and Northeast United States on comprehensive planning and development issues for over 15 years in both the public and private sectors. He received a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a B.A. in urban studies from Lehigh University.

Miguelina Rodriguez is a full-time Doctoral student in Urban Planning and Policy Development.  Miguelina's concentration within the doctoral program is community development.  She is particularly interested in Gentrification and the effects the phenomena has on disadvantaged tenants of inner-city New York.  Her research tends to focus on issues of power, race, gender, class and mobility.  Miguelina received a Masters in Public Administration and a Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Binghamton, the State University of New York.  As a student at SUNY Binghamton, Miguelina was very active on campus, joining several academic, social and cultural organizations, including: the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Acheivement Program designed to increase the numbers of low-income, first generation and/or underrepresented students of color attending graduate school and receiving their doctorate;  the Caribbean Student Association and the Black Dance Repertoire.